From Catcher In The Rye:
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- noboody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."
McManus says that this is a perfect way of describing our longing to make a difference. He says our soul is starving for hope -- not just to have it, but to give it. I love that. When something resonates within us... When our stomach tightens and we get a lump in our throat and maybe a tear in the corner of our eye, we know something to be true... That is the affirming feeling of some innate longings. The longing to help people.
We can get numb and jaded, but still the God-given sense of justice in us gets rubbed when something is wrong -- especially so when we have an opportunity to do something about it. The more jaded we are the more we might hope someone else gets involved and helps, but the urge is still there.
It's cool to read this book and be listening a lot to David Crowder Band's Remedy album simultaneously. The ideas about changing our world and bringing the kingdom to earth is exciting and it's being stirred up. It'll be rad to see what we can do in the near future.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at November 7, 2007 11:04 AM